Twitter confirms today they are beginning testing on their newest advancement: the Twitter BUY button.

Businesses can embed the Twitter buy button into a tweet, which will allow followers to purchase an item instantly through the service. According to Twitter, a “small percentage” of users in the US will start seeing the Twitter buy button today! “This is an early step,” Twitter said in a blog post, “in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun.”

The best part about this advancement into e-commerce is that companies do not have to advertise these tweets in order to use the Twitter buy button. Promoting the tweet is certainly a good move, but not required.

Stay tuned for more information about this new feature as it comes out.

Thank you to WIRED for this photo:

If you’re a social media marketing professional, this is especially great news. Twitter just became a much more effective tool for online sales which makes it easier for us to explain the value of consistent, strategy-based management. We recommend reaching out to your clients with online stores immediately and integrating a plan for utilizing the Twitter buy button as soon as possible. This plan should include determining their most popular product (start with that), possibly a first-time buyer discount, and of course…high-res images to attract the buyers.

We can’t wait to see how this affects our world!

For a business, Twitter has long been an easy way to keep in touch with customers at little to no cost. Twitter ads aren’t new, but we’re seeing the capability of Twitter Ads enhancing in ways that can benefit businesses both large and small.

Twitter ads offer the unique ability to target and track users in more ways than other social platforms can. Clicks, follows, replies and retweets are all offering up stats that can be dissected in a multitude of ways:

• by @handle
• by device
• by gender
• by interest
• by key word
• by location

For companies diving deep into the analysis of a social campaign, these kind of metrics allow for easier and more detailed split-testing opportunities (and we all know how hard it is to measure ROI in the social world without that). These robust options are making it easier for anyone to utilize Twitter ads in a way that optimizes their investment, regardless of budget.

Twitter ads offer two types of campaigns: Promoted Accounts and Promoted Tweets.

Promoted Account Twitter ads helps advertisers gain more followers. Twitter ads lets you target potential followers who are similar to your current follower base OR those who are similar to another Twitter account (you can even upload a specific list of @handles if you want). You can also target new followers based on interests.

Promoted Tweets offer three types of targeting: keyword search, keyword timeline, and interests in timeline. Keyword search Twitter ads is the same as other paid-search ads across the internet; promoted tweets show up when key words you bid on are searched. Simple! Keyword timeline will likely get you increased impressions and engagements (compared to timeline search) because Twitter users aren’t as actively utilizing the search bar as they are engaging in their timelines. Last up is interests in timeline; this option works exactly the same way Promoted Accounts work. Target followers (in the timeline) with the same interests as your current followers, other’s followers, or upload a list of @handles.

The best part about twitter ads is that you feel like you’re getting a deal every time you invest in a campaign. The platform’s wider opportunity for engagements means your overall CPE (cost per engagement) means your money is working harder for you here than other social platforms.